Breeze was about to speak when the doors at the front of the courtroom burst open and a messenger came rushing in. It was a young man in his early twenties, wearing a heavy coat and scarf and a pair of goggles pushed up over his forehead.
“Apologies, your honor,” he said as he jogged across the courtroom. He threw open the gate and ran to the bench, holding a letter up in the air. “I have urgent news from the capital.”
Breeze accepted the letter. She examined the wax seal, which was official and fully intact, and then opened the envelope. She spent a few seconds scanning the page. When she was done, she lowered her head to stare at the messenger over her glasses.
“Will you be sending a response?” he said.
“That won’t be necessary. You may leave.”
The young man nodded and went rushing out the way he had come. Breeze put the letter aside, and turned her attention back to the two men standing before her. She looked them up and down for few moments before dipping her pen into the inkpot. She started scribbling. When she was done, she held up the survey map so both could see it.
“Gentlemen, I have stipulated that from this day forward, the property line will run in a straight north-south line through the center of the creek as it sits now, and regardless of where it may relocate in the future. The boundary is permanent. As far as I’m concerned, Washback Creek can turn around and run straight up into the Blackrocks. It won’t make a lick of difference. The property line does not move, ever. And as far as water rights, you both have the right to irrigate or supply livestock. Nothing more. If I catch you extracting more than your fair share from that creek, I’ll lock you both up until you can’t remember your own names. Do you understand?”
“But my orchard!” exclaimed Britch Farmer. “If the creek moves, he’ll steal the water, sure as the world, if you let him.”
“Bah! That’s my grazing land,” said Jym Walker. “If the creek moves west, my cattle will starve and this fool will be planting orchards as far as the eye can see.”
“Then I recommend the two of you spend more time reinforcing the banks to make sure the creek stays right where it is, and less time arguing with each other.” They began to protest, but Breeze leaned forward, glaring at them, and they fell silent. “Keep this in mind,” she continued, pointing her gavel at them. “This is the third time in a year the two of you have been in my courtroom. If I see you again on this matter, at least one of you is going to lose his land. Maybe both of you. The state can always use a new federal waterway. Do I make myself clear?”
They mumbled their acceptance, and Breeze brought down the gavel with a bang! that woke the bailiff in the corner. He bolted upright, knocking over the stool he’d been napping on.
“Sorry, your honor,” he said. “It got so late...”
“Never mind, Jasper. See these men out, and lock the front doors behind you, if you please.”
“Yes, your honor. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Good night, Jasper.”
The sound of the old bailiff’s boot heels echoed in the courtroom as he led the men outside. They shuffled out and began arguing the instant their feet hit the street. The voices quickly faded, but Breeze waited until she heard the key in the lock before she leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath -the first full breath she’d had since lunch.
She rose from the bench, gathered up her lantern, and headed into the back room. There, in the mudroom, she removed her black robe and hung it on the hook by the door. She glanced at the clock on the shelf above the sideboard. The gears made a quiet click-click-click as the pendulum swung. The waning moon face was resting on its side, with its eyes closed and its pointy nose sticking straight up towards midnight. It was eight p.m. already. Where had the time gone?
Breeze stoked the fire in the old potbelly stove and started a pot of water for tea. She was hungry, but she didn’t feel like cooking. There wasn’t much in the pantry, anyway. A crusty loaf of stale bread and some moldy cheese did not sound promising. Maybe she would go out for dinner. The blossoming young town of Fern Hollow was brimming with new inns and restaurants that she was eager to try. But not yet. First she needed to rest, and to clear her head. It had been a long day.
Breeze climbed the stairs to her bedroom, where she took a moment to adjust the chimney flue, making sure the room would be warm at bedtime. Through the second-story window, she saw light snow falling on the street outside. The streetlamps threw off dim halos in the storm, and fountains of steam gushed up from the sewer grates in the cobbled street. The buildings of Fern Hollow stretched into the distance, their lights glittering in the frosty winter air.
It was a beautiful view, and a heartening one considering that this had all been wild prairie land just a few years earlier. Slowly but surely, Astatia was looking less like a wild frontier and more like a real country. A country that, by morning, would be covered in a blanket of white.
The harvest was finished, thankfully. Winter had come early to Astatia this year, and more than one farmer had nearly lost his crops. One week earlier and they would have been heading into winter with empty granaries and crops frozen in the fields…
The teapot gave out a shrill whistle, and Breeze hurried downstairs. When she entered the kitchen, she failed to notice the shadowy figure by the doorway. It was only when she heard the ominous ka-chunk of a heavy metal footstep behind her, that she wheeled around brandishing a long kitchen knife.
“Long day?” said a man’s gravelly voice.
Breeze placed the knife on the counter and exhaled a long, deep breath. “You nearly stopped my heart. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that sound.”
The tall, shadow-covered figure hung his coat on a hook by the door and stepped into the kitchen. His left foot made that heavy thumping noise on the floorboards again as he moved, and his left arm made quiet whist-click, whist-click sounds as he approached her.
“Tea?” Breeze offered, pulling a second cup from the shelf.
“Just a little,” the man said. “I haven’t eaten yet.” He settled onto a chair, and the legs creaked under his weight. The light of the lantern gleamed on the shiny brass plate on the left side of his head, and his mechanical eye buzzed as the lenses adjusted their focus.
Breeze joined him at the table. “I thought I might go down to the Steamwhistle Inn. I hear they have seafood flown in fresh every day.”
The old man raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised they can afford to do that. Most of our planes are out of commission now, except for a few gyrocopters.”
“I know. Soon, we’ll have nothing left but balloons. It’s tragic in a way. I feel like we’re moving backwards. We accomplished so much… learned so much in such a short amount of time. But now that the Blackrock steel is all gone…”
“Maybe this is nature’s way of pushing back; telling us we moved too fast.”
“Perhaps.” She sipped her tea and then stared at the steam rising from the hot liquid. “Still, I can’t help feeling like everything’s falling apart.”
He smiled gently, reaching across the table with his mostly-mechanical left arm. What flesh remained was badly scarred. The gears whirred and the fingers made clicking noises as Breeze squeezed them in her hand.
“What’s bothering you?” he said. “This is about more than an orchard, or that broken down old plane out back.”
“I got a letter from the senate today.”
“More refugees?”
She nodded. “Ten thousand Kanters crossed the border this week alone. Giants, plainsmen, Riverfolk. They’re all moving north. I don’t know what we’ll do with them all. We barely have the food to feed ourselves, and we expect half a million more by spring. They’ve overrun South Bronwyr, and Avenston has had to call in the militia. The people are already on the verge of starving, and now these idiot senators want to send more refugees here. Here! How will we feed them? Where will they live? In tents, in the snow? I don’t know what we’ll do, old friend.”
H
e gave her hand a light squeeze. “We’ll do what we have to,” he said, his good eye sparkling in the lamplight. “We’ll do what’s right.”
Breeze smiled, blinking back the frustrated tears brimming her eyes. “I know I can always trust your guidance, Tinker. What would I do without you?”
“No matter,” he said with a wide grin. “I know what you’ll do with me. Let’s go get some dinner.”
The End
Look for the next installment in the Iron Horse series, available soon at Amazon.com and other retailers!
A note from the author:
Thanks for reading “Clockwork Legion.” I hope you enjoyed this book. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my work with you, and for your support. A review at Goodreads, Amazon, or your favorite e-book website would be extremely helpful and very much appreciated. While sharing your valuable feedback, your reviews help me, and help other readers to find my books.
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Aboard the Great Iron Horse
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Clockwork Legion
ISBN-13: 978-1540565969
Copyright 2016 by Jamie Sedgwick
Cover art copyright 2016 by Timber Hill Press
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real events, people, or situations is coincidental.
Clockwork Legion (Aboard the Great Iron Horse Book 4) Page 18